The Video Game Rejects Present: A Tribute to Mike Haggar

“Yeah, them guys in the corner? Raising their glasses beneath the barlights and rags of cigarette smoke? Old school buncha video game characters… if we’re puttin’ it nicely. They never really made it big, y’know?

The becowled wizard, he’s Meeky. Guy’s always spouting off some litany of indecipherable babble, takes him like five whole minutes to get the whole thing out — turns out he’s only conjuring up a few sugar cubes for his drink — always something completely underwhelming like that.

Elvish looking fella in the green Scrooge sleeping cap? Supposedly his father was some big time hero. Like, literally traveled through time and saved kingdoms upon kingdoms. Lonk Jr. though? He’s lucky if he can lace up his own Unicorn Boots without breaking a nail. I don’t even think he’s of legal drinking age, but he runs a three hundred rupee tab everytime he’s in here — and I could use the business to be honest.

Howitzer Harley? He didn’t even make it through basic training. Somehow he has full ACU camos and an M4 carbine that he brings in with him every week, though. No idea what jackass bestowed those upon him. We just let him carry ’em around, dress how he wants. We humor the guy, what the hell.

Couple other guys in the mix too. Strongan. I’ve seen him juggle boulders like they were throwing stones but you ask him to write his own name on a piece of paper and he sweats right through his mottled animal skin thong. There’s a boxer. A talking, five-foot tall anthropomorphic turtle named Duccio. You can’t make this stuff up. They’re an odd bunch alright. This week they’re talking about Mike Haggar from Final Fight. Mayor of Metro City that strapped on a pair of overalls and took it to the gang that kidnapped his daughter with his bare hands. Bad-ass dude. You figure you’ve heard enough about the guy, but let’s see what our friends over in the corner have to say about ’em:”

Howitzer Harley

His mustache smells like, in no particular order: sawdust, shoe polish, leather-cleaning solvent, freshly mowed grass, lady taint and gorilla sweat. I know this because, uh… I pilfered freshly shaven mustache flakes from his bathroom sink one night while he was out and tried gluing them to my own upper lip. Over and out.

Sir Gaywin

Wrestling is banned from the Olympic Games in the year 2020 Anno Domine because Goodman Mike Haggar declared himself an entrant. Ho ho! Methinks the reasoning perchance be every foul knave the world round shat their trousers most voraciously at the prospect of facing the brawny one in combat sport on that day!

Lonk Jr.

I wanna be just like Mike Haggar when I grow up.

No, not a big muscly mayor that took to the streets of his very own Metro City, but a 6’7,” 266 pound mustachioed beast-man that showers in Africanized honey bee venom. A few more years and I’ll catch up to him. I currently stand at 4’8,” 65 pounds sopping wet. One meager health potion fills my two heart containers to the absolute brim. My daddy called me an “invertebrate runt of an adventurer and a disgrace to the family line.” And “You’ll never be the Hero of Time in a million years.” He’s such a kidder, my pop.

Lil’ Sack

My first born son told me that Mike Haggar was a rip-off of Liam Neeson in Taken, Jesse Ventura and the Governator.

I told him that Mike Haggar existed before any of those metaphorical bantamweights. That the first bare-knuckle boxing champion of England, James Figg, developed his technique by watching Mike Haggar fight. That Mike Haggar has no beginning or end. Then I hit my son right on the bridge of his nose with a folded-up newspaper like an insubordinate dog and sent him to bed without dinner for a month. Just like Mike Haggar would have wanted.

Duccio

Like, I heard he once gave some Mad Gear gang street thug a spinning piledriver into the pavement so gnarly it uprooted the street in a one mile radius and ruptured a sewer main. (Master Splinty was none too happy about that!)

They found Haggar just standing there above the poor dude’s dead body, the carved shelves of muscle on his torso glinting in a mix of brown poowater and sludge. Nasty, bro!

He slapped his hands together, flexed, and made his pectoral muscles do a pretty dance, first the left, then the right in sequence and the poop went volleying from his rippling body every which way: splattering onto buildings, coating a few old people in doo-doo cocoons (God rest their souls), mantling skyscrapers. Not pretty, bro. The whole city is just plastered in a crust of s--t from that day forward. That’s when they started calling Metro City, New Jersey instead.

Meeky the Magician

Submitted for the approval of the filthy dregs that habituate this derelict watering hole: *waves his hands around, robes fluttering as he recites some enigmatic incantation*